Ping monitoring: know a host is reachable, from more than one place
Ping is the simplest question you can ask a machine: are you there? StatusEagle asks it every minute from three locations, tracks how long the answer takes, and only alerts you when the host stops answering from more than one of them.
Example check · demo data
Ping monitoring sends ICMP echo requests to a server or network device at a fixed interval and records whether it replies and how long the round trip takes. No reply from multiple locations means the host is unreachable.
What ping monitoring is good for
Ping tells you about the machine and the network in front of it, not about the application. Use it where there’s no web page to check, or as a base layer under your HTTP monitors:
A useful pattern. Put a ping monitor on the host under each important website. When the site alert fires, a green ping says “the machine is fine, look at the app”; a red ping says “the machine or network is gone”. That saves the first ten minutes of an incident.
How it works
Reading ping latency
Round-trip time mostly reflects distance. A server in Frankfurt will always look faster from a nearby location than from one on another continent, and that’s fine. What matters is change: a host that usually answers in 20 ms and now takes 250 ms from every location is congested or overloaded, even though it’s technically up.
Before you start: ICMP and firewalls
Many cloud providers and firewalls drop ICMP by default. If a new ping monitor shows “down” immediately, check that before you panic. Either allow ICMP echo from StatusEagle’s monitoring addresses link IP list, or use a port monitor on a TCP port the host already exposes, such as 22 or 443.
What ping won’t tell you
Related monitoring
Pair these monitoring checks to ensure complete stack coverage.
Frequently asked questions
Still deciding? Start monitoring free and verify your first service in ~2 minutes.
Ping monitoring repeatedly sends ICMP echo requests to a host and alerts you when it stops replying. It also records round-trip time, so you can spot network slowdowns.
Your first monitor takes about two minutes.
Free plan: 10 monitors, 3 locations, 1 status page. No credit card.